Internet Defense League will spring into action when dumb laws are proposed, guided by the CAT SIGNAL!

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Holmes from Fight for the Future sez, "The Internet Defense League is a post-SOPA network of sites that use their reach to defend and improve the web. Because it can sound the alarm quickly to millions of people, people are calling it a 'bat-signal for the Internet'. The league is launching on July 19th, the same night that the new Batman movie. And the plan is to have actual spotlights beaming actual 'cat-signals' across buildings and clouds in cities around the world. We just launched a crowd-funding campaign. Help plan a party or pitch-in to make them happen."

So on Thursday night, as Hollywood’s latest superhero movie opens in theaters for a midnight showing, IDL members in select cities can celebrate the launch around powerful spotlights rented for the occasion. The spotlights will beam the IDL’s “cat-signal” into the stratosphere, across obliging clouds, or onto neighboring buildings.

Plus we've got a bunch of other cool items for league members who donate.

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Are they really interested in keeping the Internet free or do they just want to make sure that some corporations can continue to get rich without paying the writers, photographers or artists anything for their money? Most of the big companies fighting SOPA were just big companies that want to do what they want and claim that it’s all “fair use.” I wouldn’t be surprised to dig dieeper here and find the usual billionaires supporting this one, the same billionaires that gave money to Wikipedia and EFF just before those groups signed on to fight SOPA.

That’s the absolutely dumbest thing pro-SOPA Quislings say, that it’s opposed by big corporations. Listen buddy, if someone is astroturfing, it’s likely you. Nobody’s buying it. The content mafia demanding SOPA gives way less to artists than independent funders, and you find way more billionaires in the SOPA defender camp than with those who fought the righteous fight against it. And if you don’t know what fair use is, because you obviously don’t have a clue, how about googling it?

Wow. I hit a nerve. Ask yourself who is bigger? Google or any of the “content mafia”? Google’s market cap is at least 10 times bigger than the largest Hollywood studio. That’s why the billionaires at Google are funding groups like the EFF and Public Citizen. They’re just creating their Mafia of Copyright Deniers to make sure that someone will defend their freedom to do whatever they want to make as much money as they can. And what’s great is that they’re doing it by claiming their lobbying is a charitable donation so they can use a tax loophole too.

That’s how Silicon Valley’s 1% keeps the content creators on their plantation.

You are such a miserable conspiracy theorist. Everything is secretly funded by Big Money in your little, pathetic world, not because somebody really believes in freedom or anything, oh no, YOU figured it out man, you are not part of the sheeple! Give me a break. SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, all this were laws or treaties lobbied by RIAA/MPAA. How in the name of Atargatis do you defend this lobbying, but deny rational people who don’t believe in Info-Feudalism their power? And you’re right, I deny copyright, you know why? Because it isn’t a right at all! Intellectual property is not real! It’s a monopoly depriving society of information. That’s why I’m an Info-Socialist. That makes me probably evil in your feeble mind.

Why does regular socialism not work? Because material goods are scarce. Immaterial goods are not scarce, therefore info-socialism can obviously work. Also, North Korea officially discarded all references to Marxism and follows the Juche ideology.

No. I didn’t say that. But you should know who is manipulating you. Recognize that the EFF, Wikipedia and most of these so-called Freedom fighters are just mercenaries bought and paid for by search engine billions.

But you can go on believing that Google is just in it for your freedom. Yeah. That’s the ticket. They’re just spending all of that cash for your sake.

I am aware that Google and company are no saints, however I find their relationship with me to be far more beneficial than the opposition. Google is constantly introducing new products and pushing the fold in one way or another, and generally seems to operate by providing useful services (and gathering useful data, as per their less saintly side) – it’s mutual.

Meanwhile my only experience with MPAA and other middle men types has been extortion and censorship enforced through monopolies. My decision to support anti-SOPA campaigns is a measured response to blatant corruption. Theoretical money flowing from other large entities looking out for their own best interest does not dissuade me, nor should it because the threat at hand is immediate and indiscriminately devastating, while possible private shadowy agendas are – well less urgent and more negotiable.

You talk about me as if I am bending over backwards to pleasure Google’s nether regions. That is just pissing me off.

Edit: If your point is to be wary when big names are involved, then I’ll consent, that’s sound advice. However I think it’s pretty clear fighting not just SOPA style provisions but SOPA style lobbying with absolute impunity is vital right now, which makes mud slinging like this much less than appreciated.

Google hasn’t had a successful new product since they started spying on your email to decide which ads to show you. Google Plus is a ghosttown filled with Google Employees.

The content industry, on the other hand, makes new films each week and, in the process, pays the salary and health care of hundreds of thousands of professionals. So when you pay $10 at the movie theater, that’s where the money goes. Are a few of them 1% rich? Sure, but a much smaller percentage of Hollywood is 1% rich than the folks at the Googleplex.

I bet you’ve seen more films lately than you’ve started using new Google products. Some of the films were probably even great.

The EFF is just Google’s MPAA. The only difference is that the MPAA pays taxes.

– Google instant search was introduced, vastly speeding up research.
– Gmail has been upgraded several times.
– Google drive is in full swing, bringing numerous improvements to google documents (which I have come to use for everything)
– Chrome was just released for the ipad and greatly improved mobile functionality.
– Google is working on augment reality glasses – let me repeat – augmented reality glasses, which I do believe qualify as a genuine product that (bonus) pushes the fold in one way or another.

Point being, they aren’t sitting with thumbs up their asses. The comment that films are more abundant than one companies products is absolutely asinine at any rate. To the point of films creating jobs, how many jobs get edged out because the MPAA and company decide for any arbitrary reason that a movie can’t be shown in a theater? What recourse do theaters have against being extorted by the studios? How much do ya think that stifles innovation and prosperity?

How about we look into an industry that doesn’t have one central authority green-lighting everything: gaming. They seem to be doing quite well despite having no one ‘protecting’ the producers or consumers, and independents such as Mojang are succeeding now more than ever even along side massive names like Bethesda and Ubisoft.

I do not see why we are arguing about this. As per your reasoning it is very obviously a bad idea to give one person all the power, which is why we need to be fighting legislation like SOPA that would seek to do EXACTLY THAT.